Axel Hjo (tidligere Jonsson)

Master i rettsvitenskap fra Stockholms Universitet. Skriver en PhD-avhandling (2022–2026) om statsrettslig forhåndsvurdering av parlamentsvedtak i de nordiske land: 

Nordic styles of constitutional preview – different institutions, similar conversations? 

While none of the Nordic countries have a constitutional court, Denmark and Norway lack any special institutions with a constitutional mandate to perform constitutional ex ante review (constitutional preview) of legislation. In contrast, The Swedish Council on Legislation (Lagrådet) and the Constitutional Law Committee (grundlagsutskottet) of the Finnish parliament are often highlighted as important fora for a special style of constitutional preview, not formally binding the legislature, yet demonstrating considerable influence de facto. Nevertheless, the institutional and methodological problem of how to ensure the constitutionality of legislation remains similar, posing an intriguing question: do the legal analysis of constitutionality of proposed legislation depend on special institutions? 

The Nordic countries in general provide excellent opportunities to evaluate institutional design in action, thanks to their many contextual similarities.  A pilot case study of recent reforms of criminal legislation on defamation (ærekrenkelser) in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden suggests that the neither the quality nor the intensity of legal analysis necessarily depend on special institutional boundaries. Quite the opposite, the case study indicates that similar Nordic general traditions of broad, inclusive, and transparent procedures of preparation of legislation could be equally important. This common feature of sharing rather than separating the legislative power, enables several sequences of input from the many actors of the legal system before legislation is finally promulgated. At least when the tradition is followed, a sequence of reactive statements jointly forms a proactive conversation on constitutionality. However, the questions are to what extent the conversation is limited when broad and inclusive procedures are not utilised and what consequences a lack of conversation can have for the constitutional asessments.